Step interest checklist.
The following activities/subjects are of interest to many people. Circle any which interest you. Do not worry about whether or not there seems to be any direct connection to an employment opportunity. The list is not exhaustive, so use your imagination and be sure to add any interest you have which is not listed.
- Gardening/Horticulture
- Tennis
- Bird-watching
- Construction
- Research
Another important aspect of your future work is the intrinsic values associated with that type of employment activity. Following is an activity which will help you decide which work values are most important to you.
Action Step: Rewards Checklist.
Rate each of the following work rewards as they relate to you. Use a scale of one to four with "1" indicating "not at all important" to you and "4" indicating "very important" to you in considering a career. Prioritize these variables and then add them to the summary sheet at the end of this unit.
Help Society: Do something to contribute to the betterment of the world I live in.
Help Others: Be involved in helping other people in a direct way, either individually or in small groups.
Make Decisions: Have the power to decide courses of action, policies, etc.
Power and Authority: Control the work activities or (partially) the destinies of other people.
Influence People: Be in a position to change attitudes or opinions of other people.
Knowledge: Engage myself in the pursuit of knowledge, truth, and understanding.
Intellectual Status: Be regarded as a person of high intellectual prowess or as one who is an acknowledged "expert" in a given field.
Artistic Creativity: Engage in creative work in any of several art forms.
Creativity (general): Create new ideas, programs, products, organizational structures, or anything else not following a format previously developed by others.
Aesthetics: Be involved in studying or appreciating the beauty of things, ideas, etc.
Supervision: Have a job in which I am directly responsible for the work done by others.
Recognition: Be recognized for the quality of my work in some visible or public way.
Excitement: Experience a high degree of (or frequent) excitement in the course of my work.
Adventure: Have work duties which involve frequent risk-taking, profit, gain: Have a strong likelihood of accumulating large amounts of money or other material gain.
Moral Fulfillment: Feel that my work is contributing significantly to a set of moral standards which I feel are very important.
Physical Challenge: Have a job that makes physical demands which I would find rewarding.
Another way of approaching the question of the rewards you seek and what it is that you want to accomplish through your work in the future is to project yourself forty or fifty years from now and look at your work life in the past tense. The following action step may provide some help with this.
Action Step: Visualizing Your Future
Assume absolutely ideal conditions. Dare to dream. This is the best of all possible worlds and you know that you can in fact achieve absolutely anything you would like to achieve. Project yourself into the future to the year 2035. You have just died after a full and happy life. Write down your own obituary as you would like it to appear in your favorite newspaper. Talk about what you have accomplished in terms of 1) productive, enjoyable work; 2) the special knowledge, skills, and abilities you developed over the years; 3) your family life and anything else that it would be important for people to remember you for. Be creative and fantasize to your heart's content. If writing your obituary does not appeal to you, fantasize that you have been named Person of the Year 2035. Write a news article explaining why, again mentioning 1, 2, and 3 above.
Characteristics of Your Preferred Work Environment
You have identified your skills. You have specified your interest areas and work values in different Action Steps and, as a result, developed some ideas of what you would like to accomplish through your work. Now you are ready to consider characteristics of the work environment that are important to you. You will want to choose a work setting that meshes as much as possible with your own values and personality. Organizations vary according to the type of product or service they provide, organizational style and size, rate of growth, and the physical environment of the workplace. Below are descriptions of items to consider under each of these categories, followed by a partial list of employer types. Use these to establish your criteria for identifying your "ideal" work environment, one that would meet your needs and is conducive to your "style" of working.
Product or Service Provided
Generally, employers fall into two main categories: manufacturing and services. Manufacturing organizations produce and sell tangible products such as electronic equipment, chemicals, building materials, motor vehicles, etc. Service organizations provide services such as education, social services, consulting, insurance, or tax counseling. Some people prefer working with more tangible products, while others prefer working with less tangible things such as services. Beyond this distinction, you will want to consider the types of products or services with which you would like to be associated.
